Almost every home in South Korea now contains a Korean-translated Talmud. But unlike in Israel, the Korean mothers teach the Talmud to their children. In a country of close to 49 million people who believe in Buddhism and Christianity, there are more people who read the Talmud – or at least own their own copy at home – more than in the Jewish state. Much more.

The South Koreans don’t “study” talmud. They do like to quote statements of amoraim and study their meaning like lihavdil elef havdalos the sayings of confucious. That said, it should be pointed out that this story made its way around the web in between purim and april 1st, for a reason.

i read about this in the yated. i sort of didn’t know what to think when i read it. they aren’t gonna get anything out of just learning the gemara without learning all the meforshim. so they will probably get wrong messages and ideas.

A few years ago, when the story was making the rounds, I did some private research. I spoke with some Koreans who live in Korea and one Chabadsker living in Japan, I searched on Naver (Korean equivalent of Google) for words I got translated from Google Translate (words like “Talmud”, “Jewish”, and “Torah”). The result? Several decades ago, a Rov in Japan published a series of Mashals and other stories from Bavli in Japanese. More recently, a Korean Christian publisher had the book partially translated to Korean and published as an illustrated children’s book simply called “The Talmud”.